A group of international experts, led by Andriy Yermak, calls for Russia to be recognized as a “terrorist state”, so as to be able to strengthen measures that damage the economy of the invading country
To impose the sanctions that have hit Russia so far, “exceptional work has been carried out”. But “The invasion is not over, the annexation continues and the acts of terrorism are not over”. For this reason the Yermak-McFaul group, wanted by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and co-directed by his number two, the head of the President’s Office Andriy Yermakand by former American Ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul, calls on the West to step up the measures to hit the Russian economy.
The group, made up of Ukrainian and international experts who provide advice on sanctions, published yesterday, September 29, a report explaining how Russia can now be defined, under US law, “a terrorist state” and consequently calls for a tightening of sanctions. Yermak urges the US, the European Union, Great Britain, Canada and Japan to act to double the scope of the measures, including the complete exclusion of Moscow from the international financial system. According to Washington law only North Korea, Syria, Iran and Cuba were branded as “terrorist states” in the past. «The essence of terrorism – reads the report – can be summed up as“ premeditated violence against non-combatant targets ”. Without a doubt, Russia’s current actions in Ukraine ‘fit that definition.
To prove this point, the experts who compiled the report list a number of “non-isolated” cases, which include: testimonies of rape, torture and other heinous violations of human rights; the siege of Mariupol, “where the Russian government is responsible for a serious humanitarian crisis” which it killed over 22,000 civilians and destroyed 95 percent of the city; and the liberation of Izyum, which unearthed “over 400 unidentified graves of Ukrainian civilians”.
Then there is the damage to infrastructure – “131 thousand residential units destroyed, along with 934 school facilities and 2,472 health facilities” – and the thousands (over 30,000, according to the report) of war crimes committed by Muscovite soldiers. In the end 1.3 million Ukrainian citizens and children who were «kidnapped and taken to Russia against their will. ”
The group therefore calls for Russia to be officially designated a “terrorist state”, not least because the decision that would entail the illegality of financial transactions with the government of Russia for US persons and entities, the ban on the export and sale of arms, the freezing of Russian government-owned properties, banks and businesses and the imposition of sanctions directed at any country that continues to cooperate with Moscow.
“The impact of the sanctions imposed so far has not been decisive: it is often said that money is like water: it always finds a way to flow,” commented Yermak. “The time has therefore come to increase Russia’s economic isolation as a necessary means of helping to end this conflict. If Russia wins this war, the security of the West and the rules-based international order it supports will be shattered.»Concluded Zelensky’s deputy.
September 30, 2022 (change September 30, 2022 | 18:13)
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